I spent the weekend with my wonderful nephew, the only human being I’ve seen brought into the world. Since the moment of his birth almost fourteen years ago, our time together has been a series of delights – from visits to the pumpkin patch to running on the beach to quite a few batches of chocolate chip cookies.

As he’s grown older, though, this particular Aunt has begun encountering a series of cant’s.

“Want to go to Asheville this weekend?” “Can’t – soccer game.”

“I have tickets to a great concert on Saturday; want to join me?” “Can’t – basketball game.”

“Would you like to go on a cruise with Uncle Oli and me?” “Can’t – leadership camp”. And so on.

So when I discovered I could have him all to myself for an entire day this Saturday, I panicked – how could I possibly make an entire day sufficiently entertaining for a fourteen-year old? Thus I turned to my local, fail-safe entertainment resource: The sixteen-year old checkout boy at Harris Teeter, who wisely advised that I take my nephew to see “Ant Man”.

Full confession: I had precisely zero desire to see Ant Man. But I gamely bought popcorn and settled into my seat when – whammo! I saw my work life play out before my very eyes.

How does my life compare to that of a superhero who saves the world? (Spoiler alert – stop reading if you have not yet seen the movie!) As with any superhero, I work with some great sidekicks! The first sidekick that came to mind when watching Ant Man was OSISoft, a manufacturer of application software for real-time data infrastructure solutions, called the PI System (and yes, I did buy my nephew a pizza pie, but I digress…) I watched transfixed as Ant Man shrank down to microscopic size, jumped through a keyhole, and expanded again to his full self as Michael Douglas’ character stated: “You should be able to shrink and grow on a dime, so your size always suits your needs”.

Well that is precisely what OSISoft’s PI System does for manufacturers! It helps compress data down into a manageable size, jump through the tiny keyholes of IT systems and networks, and then with the push of a button (well, okay, with the running of an algorithm), magically expand that same data into full size in your database of choice. SAS’ partnership with OSISoft makes it even easier for manufacturers to manage this magical transformation, with pre-built, tested connectors that enable efficient data management and support analytical data quality, ensuring that, like Ant Man, your data expands to its original form without going “splat” in your operations.

A second sidekick that helps put the “hero” in this superhero is SAP HANA. Through SAS’ partnership with SAP we’ve integrated industry-leading SAS Analytics with the SAP HANA platform to speed up the entire analytical life cycle – from preparing and exploring data to developing, deploying and monitoring models. If only Hank Pym had used the SAS Asset Performance Analytics solution on top of SAP HANA when designing the Ant Man suit, Scott Lang might not have (****bleeped**** to prevent spoilers for those who have not yet seen the movie. Go see it! I loved it, and so did the nephew!)

Are you ready to be a superhero? We hosted a fun and entertaining webinar on the 29th of September to discuss SAS Asset Performance Analytics on SAP HANA. Sure, attendees had to bring their own popcorn, but they heard from yours truly, a contributing author to “Making the Case for SAP HANA” from SAP Press, and Thomas Roehm, Senior Director of SAS’ Global Industry Practice and our worldwide leader for business development, marketing, and consulting services on how to:

So in addition to working on helping our customers with their manufacturing challenges, I’ll be giving some thought and design expertise to my Halloween costume, which will most likely be Ant Man inspired. Because this Aunt is dragging her nephew to one last pumpkin patch while she still can.

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Unable to attend the webinar? Contact me via SCN, LinkedIn, or Twitter (@MWEnergy) with your email address and I will send you a link to the recording.